De Pilo Pendet
by N. Kat
Summary: Hinata Takahashi never expected her life to go this way. Five years ago she was still in medical school, blindly working towards a goal. Two years ago she was just leaving Japan, trying to find herself. And now, after everything, she's stuck in Georgia, surrounded by monsters and unknown faces. What does your life become when it's hanging by a thread?


Prologue

There was nothing particularly special about the day the outbreak started. The sun rose just as it did any other day and people carried on as usual. There were no "signs"; no strange-behaving animals, no fire in the sky, not even a charge in the air. The day the apocalypse started was just like any other day before it.

Soon though, humans started picking up on things. There were isolated reports across the world of sickness and psychosis: "Man attacks a woman", "Child found eating relatives", "Woman shot down for cannibalism". But, as usual, people summed it up to drugs and mental sickness. No one dared to imagine that something bigger was going on.

And that's how it spread. More and more reports kept coming in of people getting attacked by others. Except now, they started to realize how different the attackers were from the victims: the cloudy eyes, the rotting teeth and lack of cognition. It all pointed towards something sinister, the work of the Devil some said.

But, within the first couple of days, it was all still just speculation. No one really believed the world was going to end.

"Here ya' go m'am"

Hina's head snapped towards the gas station clerk and away from the TV screen. The sound of his voice ended the daydream she was caught in and she hurried to collect her bags from him.

The reports were getting worse. It seems to be moving past the point of 'doped-up-cannibals' and into an actual sickness. Unfortunately, when Hina called her dad last night, no one had answered; he either was still mad at her or maybe he had also fell victim to the illness. The only way Hina could find out is if she traveled all the way back to Japan and investigated her dad's home herself. Fat chance that was going to happen now; just last week she had heard rumors about flights being cancelled.

With a relieved sigh, Hina hopped into her mantis, green Countryman and quickly turned on her AC. There was nothing she hated more than the Georgian heat. Not only was the sun beating down on your neck, but the air was so humid and thick, your breath could literally get stuck in your throat—Hina thought so anyway.

"_Damn_…" The young, Asian woman cursed to herself as she turned up the radio volume. Over the past couple of days, the radio stations had stopped playing music and had, instead, switched to the news. As if every TV in Georgia wasn't playing it already. Although Hina normally had an abundance of patience, something about people going crazy was starting to scare her a bit; she was thousands of miles from home.

Hina never really considered herself a free-spirit—she had never rebelled during her teenage years and had pretty much taken her father's word as law—but, after her twenty fourth birthday was, once again, spent at home, she suddenly felt trapped. For months, she tried to fight the feeling in her chest and had dived more into her studies than ever before. But, that had only made things worse. When Hina finally sat down and took a look at her life, she realized what the problem was: she just wasn't happy. Her dream job was never going to be becoming a doctor. She didn't want to meet a "nice man" and settle down. She wasn't going to spend the rest of her life obeying her father. She was tired of being a good daughter. She had no close friends, hadn't had a relationship in years and was starting to realize how lonely she was getting.

So, finally, after weeks of preparing, Hina sat down with her dad and told him the news. To say he wasn't happy would be an understatement. Her father always said how important it was to be calm and respectable at all times. But, on that day, her father yelled at her for the first time and even though he refused to use violence against people, that didn't save the objects in their immediate area. Hina was so afraid at the sight of her father lashing out that she ran and never looked back.

For her first month of traveling, Hina was too scared to even call home. Instead, she sent postcards whenever she stopped at a hotel and could afford it. She didn't know if he ever read them, but sending letters was definitely less frightening because he could never respond. She really never meant to hurt him with her selfish decisions, but just the thought of how disappointed he was still affecting her. The least she could do was let him know she was still alive.

Usually, Hina was able to quickly forget about her past life, mostly because she was too busy with other things. But, after everything that happened over the past month, Hina figured she should try to get to an airport while she can.

And that's what she was doing now; sitting in her cool car in the sweltering heat trying to get to Atlanta, the closest city with an airport. Of course, Hina wasn't too good with American back roads and the pure emptiness of some of the roads was starting to get to her. The main highways had been packed full of traffic; Georgia was full of farms and every family was heading the same way she was. Finding a hotel was going to be harder than normal.

* * *

It seemed to take the whole day before Hina could finally see the lights of Atlanta in the distance. Luckily, it was summer so, despite the lack of street lights on the roads, Hina could still see the road without having to turn on her high beams, and probably attract every animal in the area. That would only cause problems. She could still remember the first accident she had while on the road. It was down in Argentina; an animal had suddenly run out and Hina swerved to avoid him. Luckily, Hina didn't get too badly hurt, but her first car had been totally wrecked after that. Despite the circumstances, Hina would like to look over the memory fondly; it was her first time practicing self-medicine.

"_Shit,"_ She cursed. _ "I can't catch a break can I?" _Hina slowed to a stop before sticking her head out the window.

Ahead of her, a long line of cars were leading into the city. It seems like everyone didn't take the main roads and someone people tried to sneak in from the sides like her. Hina scolded herself; she should of seen that one coming.

Looking back at all the distance she traveled, Hina signed before sitting back down and rolling up her windows. She refused to re-travel all the distance she just crossed. So, Hina pulled her car until she was at the back of the line.

Maybe she would be able to get into the city before the moon got too high in the sky. Hina hoped that wasn't expecting too much.

* * *

A/N: Hello everyone and welcome! This is my first story for this series and I'm determined to do it right. Even though it says OC only, later I will be adding characters as I go along. So stick around, okay? Haha, anyway please take notice that some dialogue is in _italics; _this is Hina speaking her native language, Japanese. Since I'm not Japanese, I'm not even going to try. But, I felt the series is lacking some more Asian characters, seeing as there is only Glenn, so I made another one!

Well, that's all for now. Please rate and review! Maybe follow if you really like it?


End file.
